In-Game Mod provided by Turtle Rock Studios & VALVe

System Requirements

• Left 4 Dead
  
• SourceMod
  
• MetaMod: Source
  
• Survivor Upgrades Plugin (Optional)

Optional: You may use SourceMod, however, it is needed to use the command for enabling the upgrades. SourceMod features can be disabled.

Survivor Upgrades is an in-game modification and configuration that allows the survivors to obtain random upgrades during each checkpoint through their campaigns. These upgrades improve their strength in different ways, such as, adding laser sights to weapons, increased magazine sizes, increases ammo reserve, health bonuses, knife usage, or preveting a boomer's vomit. These upgrades will help survivors last longer and fight off the infected in style!

There are currently a total of 21 Upgrades stored inside the game. You can view the following upgrades listed below:

• Kevlar Body Armor (Reduced Damage)
  
• Ammo Pouch (Increased Ammo Reserve)
  
• Boomer Neutralizer (Prevent Boomer Vomit)
  
• Smoker Neutralizer (Prevent Smoker Tongue)
  
• Climbing Chalk (Self-Revive Ledge Save)
  
• Second Wind (Self-Revive)
  
• Goggles (See-Through Boomer Vomit)
  
• Morphine (Increased Limping Speed)
  
• Adrenaline (Increased Movement Speed)
  
• Hot Meal (Requires Advanced Coding)
  
• Laser Sight (Increased Accuracy)
  
• Suppressor (Silent Gunfire and Muzzle Flash)
  
• Combat Sling (Reduced Recoil)
  
• Extended Magazine (Increased Magazine Capacity)
  
• Hollow Ammunition (Increased Bullet Damage)
  
• Sniper Scope (Sniper Scope Attachment for Weapons)
  
• Sniper Scope Accuracy (Improved Accuracy on Sniper Scope)
  
• Knife (Self-Save Hunter Attack)
  
• Smelling Salts (Reduced Revive Duration)
  
• Ointment (Increased Healing Effect)
  
• Reloader (Increased Reloading Speed)

Notice: Original names hereby are yet to be corrected based on original source. If anyone has the original documentation or in-game code that provides official names. Please do not hesitate to contact "Marcus101RRx"

However, given all these upgrades are revealed to function properly, some of these are not executed by the game's code, thus, not all of them can be obtained without third party software. Modifications like SourceMod can allow you to obtain these and more without any difficulty.

Each of these upgrades can be obtained together as a bulk pack, or even a single upgrade. The game will decide upon next round what upgrades you will obtain. These are purely random events, and it is not guaranteed which one you will possess.

NOTE: Some of these upgrades can cause you to obtain achievements without any effort on your part, such as: My Bodyguard, Ground Cover, Standing Tall, & Nothing Special.

Where did Survivor Upgrades come from?

It seemed originally that Turtle Rock Studios was working on a in-game modification that would give the Survivors an improvement, it is also speculated that these upgrades were meant to be used as a feature to allow the survivors to change their weapon and properties of themselves during the fight against the infected. The final version, however, was released to VALVe and discontinued, leaving the modification unfinished and unusable at certain constraints.

It is speculated that Survivor Upgrades was a feature in the original Left 4 Dead (Beta) version of the game, as it seems more common sense. Goggles tend to make it easier to look through Boomer's Vomit when blinded, in the original, it was replaced from a red blood-like texture to a green slime substance. Even the weapon upgrades that improve accuracy, magazine size, or ammo reserve has proven to be useful to players who use more ammunition against the infected than the average player.

Though it is not clear why or who dropped most of the development on Survivor Upgrades, it is assumed VALVe discontinued to the coding of Survivor Upgrades in order to finalize Left 4 Dead's polished form. This theory, was later proven with its sequel Left 4 Dead 2, where the Survivor Upgrades are no longer present. VALVe may have simply removed Survivor Upgrades due to the fact that it is not their original work and wish to make the sequel of the game more of VALVe's originally rather than leave previous developer's work unnoticed.

How to enable Survivor Upgrades?

Even though Survivor Upgrades is not finished and has glitches, the game is still capable of running the modification without third party software. Using the in-game command below will enable Survivor Upgrades by its default coding design and rules. By default, the game has this disabled, and must be enabled by using either the server configuration file or the developer console during gameplay.

Command Variable

You will not notice changes until the next map or the campaign has been restarted. These upgrades are randomly chosen for each survivor, and you may not obtain the same upgrade at the exact same time. Their functions are usually displayed by a the director, however, since this is not fully encoded, the game will display strange text that is unfinished.

It is recommended to use the third party version instead.

Image: Bill using Laser Sight on infected.

Other version of Survivor Upgrades?

There have been released third party software that allows users to enable Survivor Upgrades in a completely different option, this is using a modification known as SourceMod[www.sourcemod.net] and MetaMod: Source[www.sourcemm.net]. These two are required to use the third party software known as "plugins" for the game Left 4 Dead.

While Left 4 Dead has this modification coded already in-game. Third party software is required to use some of the unfinished upgrades in the game. Various "plugins" were released to enable these upgrades, however, some may not be true to their original intentions or design. Various developers have taken over the projects to continue their ideal design and nature. These "plugins" can be downloaded from the free-lance community known as AlliedModders[forums.alliedmods.net]. Check the below available versions of Survivor Upgrades created by various users of the community:

• Survivor Upgrades[forums.alliedmods.net] by Jerrith
  
• KrX's Survivor Upgrades[forums.alliedmods.net] by Jerrith & Whosat
  
• Survivor Upgrades Reloaded[forums.alliedmods.net] by Jerrith, Whosat & Marcus101RR

Be advised, in order to use the above "plugins" correctly, you must successfully install SourceMod and MetaMod: Source into your Addons folder.

In this guide, we will show you the different results from the various upgrades that can be obtained in the game. Each upgrade is unique to its features and has its own advantage/disadvantage.

Kevlar Body Armor (Reduced Damage)
Effect: Reduces Damage by 50%.
This upgrade is very useful and makes difficulties like Advanced and Expert a little bit easier. It absorbs the damage you recieve from infected by 50% from all types. However, it doesn't save you from instant death by The Witch or The Tank. The Witch will do 50% damage, giving you enough time to kill her for good, should you have startled her.

Ammo Pouch (Increased Ammo Reserve)
Effect: Increases Ammo Reserve by 50%.
This upgrade can come in handy for the Survivor using Automatic Weapons. Since the Sub-Machine Gun and Rifle can expend ammunition very quickly, the upgrade will give a enough to make it to the next Ammunition Pile before you run out.


Boomer Neutralizer (Prevent Boomer Vomit)
Effect: Prevents The Boomer's Bile Once.
Boomers can be very annoying to come across and if one happens to suprise you, it could cost the entire team. Having the Boomer Neutralizer Upgrade (Which is a spray), lets you avoid the Boomer's Bile attack one time. This can come in handy for protecting the other survivors who are unlucky!

Smoker Neutralizer (Prevent Smoker Tongue)
Effect: Prevents The Smoker's Tongue Attack Once.
Smokers are capable of doing some serious damage if used right, and this can save your day if you feel lucky enough. The Smoker Neutralizer will prevent the tongue from latching on for one time, however, this should give you enough time to either shoot the Smoker or run away.

SourceMod

Download: http://www.sourcemod.net/downloads.php
SourceMod is server modification for any game that runs on the Half-Life 2 engine. It is a powerful, highly optimized platform for scripting plugins and handling server administration. The default package comes with a base set of plugins, but there are over 2,500 plugins in the community.

Basic Features (Users)

• An easy to use, deeply fine-grained permissions system (SQL compatible)
  
• A highly configurable admin menu
  
• Reserved slots
  
• Flexible map management plugins (nominations, rock the vote, etc)
  
• Basic commands such as kicking/banning/slapping/muting players, changing cvars, etc
  
• Various voting commands
  
• Chat spam protection
  
• Comprehensive chat triggers for both users and administrators
  
• Easily translatable

SourceMod is highly optimized and ideal for getting the most performance out of your Source servers, without the complexity of writing C++ code.

Scripting Features (Developers)

• Administration - Comprehensive API for developing administration systems.
  
• Clients - Working with in-game client information and callbacks.
  
• Commands - Creation, hooking, and overriding of client and server console commands.
  
• ConVars - Creation, hooking, and retrieval of console variables.
  
• Database - Abstracted database access.
  
• Engine - Access to many Half-Life 2 engine features, with more constantly being added.
  
• Entities - Changing and retrieving entity properties, both named and numbered.
  
• Events - Creating, firing, and hooking of Half-Life 2 GameEvents.
  
• Files - Access to the filesystem.
  
• IPC - Advanced inter-plugin communication, similar to AMX Mod X.
  
• Menus - Abstracted menu API for creating uniform menus across mods
  
• Messages - Sending and hooking UserMessages.
  
• Parsing - Advanced, highly optimized text parsing.
  
• Timers - Creation of timed events.
  
• Translation - Multi-Lingual phrase file lookup.

Source: http://www.sourcemod.net/about.php [SourceMod About]

Metamod: Source

Download: http://www.sourcemm.net/
Metamod: Source is a C++ plugin environment for Half-Life 2. It acts as a "metamod" which sits in between the Game and the Engine, and allows plugins to intercept calls that flow between. It provides a mechanism called SourceHook, a very powerful library for intercepting, overriding, and superseding virtual function calls.

Although Valve provides their own C++ plugin environment, we found two major reasons to develop Metamod: Source:

If separate plugins use their own hooking mechanisms, conflicts will arise. The centralized SourceHook environment solves that by providing a unified gateway.
Valve's layer has idiosyncrasies, such as not fully unloading from memory and poor console and programmatic control. Metamod:Source is explicit, flexible, and open source.
It is important to note that Metamod:Source is not the same as "Mani Admin Plugin," "SourceMod," or "EventScripts." It is a very small library wrapper designed to load and pass a few pointers to C++ plugins. It provides almost no unneeded functionality (such as game play mods or MySQL support) and incurs no overhead on its own.

Create VDF File

Location: http://www.sourcemm.net/vdf
Your game will require a VDF file in order for the Metamod: Source system to function, be advised, that you must choose the correct game for your modifications.

Installation Instructions of SourceMod and MetaMod: Source

These are the following steps to fully install the modifications into your game. The location is located in your Addons folder, the same for maps and skins, where both SourceMod and MetaMod will reside.

SourceMod
1. Download SourceMod for your Operating System.
2. Install SourceMod into Addons Folder (Already compiled in Addons directory)
3. Simply let SourceMod overwrite the folder Addons and add the content.

MetaMod: Source
1. Download MetaMod: Source for your Operating System.
2. Install SourceMod into Addons Folder (Already compiled in Addons directory)
3. Simply let SourceMod overwrite the folder Addons and add the content if needed.

Your directory should look something like this:

• \left4dead\left4dead\addons\sourcemod
  
• \left4dead\left4dead\addons\metamod
  
• \left4dead\left4dead\addons\metamod.vdf

Installing Survivor Upgrades Plugins

You have the choice of installing any of the above stated modifications of Survivor Upgrades into your plugins folder. You do not need to do anything else, after the installation is complete you may run Left 4 Dead Dedicated Server, and join it locally to use the modification.

WARNING: Most plugins do not work well under Listening Servers, and it is highly recommended you use Source Dedicated Server for Left 4 Dead to host your game. Be it for Single Player, or Multiplayer!

The location of the plugin should be, as an example:

If you have successfully installed these components, you will have access to the modification. Be advised, it is recommended you read the modification's page to understand how to properly use it in-game.

The game may become slightly easier with this modification enabled, but the truth behind it is, it only matters on how you use these upgrades. Some of these upgrades have certain effects, and will only affect certain players in a given situation.

In Example, Bill has Ointment Upgrade, Louis has Extended Magazine, Zoey has Hot Meal, and Francis has Ammo Backpack. Each of these players now have a specific role to play. However, the question is what are these roles and how does this affect the game and their teammates? We can now determine that the roles for these survivors by the upgrades they possess.

Bill has the Ointment Upgrade, thus, he is capable of healing survivors to their maximum health (Default: 100), which is only obtained when starting a campaign from the beginning. If Bill uses a first aid kit on any survivor, they will instantly be healed to their maximum health rather than the default value of percentage the first aid kit can heal.

Strategy: Let Bill heal survivors for maximum effect!

Louis has the Extended Magazine, capable of using 50% more ammunition in a single clip or chamber. This will make reloading less annoying, and taking out infected easier in a short period of time. Tanks will become less of a nuisance with the extended magazine using a total of 15 Auto-Shotgun shots or even a 75-sized magazine of rifle ammunition!

Strategy: Let Louis deal with First Blood on Tanks and Hordes.

Zoey has Hot Meal, this effect allows the survivor to obtain a total of 150 Health rather than its default. On each saferoom checkpoint the survivor will regain their health this value. This would mean you can save yourself and your teammates an extra medkit when entering the checkpoint.

Strategy: Let Zoey remain unhealed for next checkpoint.

Francis has Ammo Backpack, this makes gaining extra ammunition alot easier and first hand fighter for dealing with the hordes. This allows you to skip ammuntion piles more often and rarely run out of ammo. This will be good for finales as this will allow you to remain positioned and continue to fight even though you may already have used half of your ammo.

Strategy: Stay in place, and bring on the fight.

The first Survivor Upgrades of its kinds was released by Jerrith on June 22, 2009. This version of the modification only utilized 15 of the upgrades that were available, of which one was unofficial to the series. Jerrith released a simple version of the plugin in order to keep the basics, the difference of this version is that survivors obtain upgrades based on random kills of infected.

The following methods allow you to obtain new upgrades:

• Killing the Witch gains all survivors 1 upgrade.
  
• Killing the Witch also gains the killer 1 additional upgrade.
  
• Killing the Tank gains all survivors 1 upgrade.
  
• Killing the Tank also gains the killer 1 additional upgrade.

Unofficial Upgrades

Incendiary Ammunition is considered an unofficial upgrade and was provided by the plugin's function system rather than the official. The modification allowed you to change between Hollow Point Ammunition and Incendiary Ammunition, however, they were limited by use.

The second release of Survivor Upgrades was released on August 15, 2009 by Whosat. The new updated improved the last modification and support. It was abandoned on or around September 6, 2009 and the last version to date is 1.1.6. This version included a few new upgrades, and some additional features. It also fixed bugs, changed gameplay, and modified how the upgrades were given during each session.

Some changes were made to obtain more upgrades, while the previous version regains the old requirements as well:

• Survivors can now kill 100 common infected to obtain 1 upgrade.
  
• Survivors can heal others survivors if below 50% to obtain 1 upgrade.
  
• Survivors can heal themselves if in critical state to obtain 1 upgrade.

The new version also obtained one new unofficial upgrade that allowed survivors to run faster by about 50% more speed. The upgrade is considered unofficial because it was not unlocked from the game's coding but rather self-coded by the developer. It was later identified that Adrenaline did exist in Left 4 Dead as an official upgrade, however, was never used.

Unofficial Upgrades

There was only one unofficial upgrade detected, while another upgrade was considered misleading. Adrenaline allowed survivors to run faster than normal speed, but also caused them to fall faster due to the fact that a Source Net Prop (Data value within the game) was modified for that specific user, causing them to run fast, but suffer in jumping ability.

Misleading Upgrades

There also was one misleading upgrade introduced to this modification, and may have been copied over from the last modification. Ointment is claimed to allow the survivor to run faster when injured (Default below 40 health), which causes survivors to limp. This caused survivors to suffer in running speed unless they use a first aid kit or pain pills. Ointment in fact, did not allow you to run faster, but instead, allows survivors to use first aid kits to heal to maximum health (Default 80% health restored) instead of the percentage limit by the first aid kit configuration.

Identification of More Upgrades

After development has ceased with this modification by its developer, the game recieved more updates that caused the modification to break and stop working. Due to signatures being used for the binary application either for Windows or Linux, users requested an update. The lack of support had made this plugin very difficulty to keep active.

It was later discovered that all upgrades were indeed stored in a Net Prop Data Value, of which signatures would be a thing of the past. In addition, it was theorized that there were more upgrades within the game's coding, however, they were not used due to being unstable for map transitions or new campaign restarts.

Both of these discoveries led to a new and possible final release of Survivor Upgrades, created by Marcus101RR

The second release of Survivor Upgrades was released on February 1, 2012 by Marcus101RR. This version improved the last modification and support to a state without the use of SDK (Source Development Kit) usage. This final version fixes major bugs and issues, restores upgrades to their own extension, and provides the missing upgrades that were not yet added.

Image: Survivor carrying two grenades, molotov and pipebomb.

Major changes were made to obtain more upgrades, while losing upgrades had negative effects.

• All Upgrades can be obtained from positive Awards.
  
• All Upgrades can be lost from negative Awards.
  
• All Upgrades can be disabled/enabled server-wise.
  
• All Upgrades can be disabled/enabled by client's choice.

This version obtained a substantial amount of new upgrades including official ones from the game, and custom ones from ideas and thoughts.

• Large Pain Pills (Increased Pain Pills Usage)
  
• Kevlar Body Armor (Decreased Damage)
  
• Steroids (Increased Pain Pills Effect)
  
• Bandages (Increased Revive Buffer)
  
• Beta-Blockers (Increased Incapacitation Health)
  
• Morphogenic Cells (Limited Health Regeneration)
  
• Air Boots (Increased Jump Height)
  
• Ammo Pouch (Increased Ammunition Reserve)
  
• Boomer Neutralizer (Anti-Boomer Special Attack)
  
• Smoker Neutralizer (Anti-Smoker Special Attack)
  
• Large First Aid Kit (Increased First Aid Kit Usage)
  
• Climbing Chalk (Self-Ledge Save)
  
• Second Wind (Self-Revive Save)
  
• Goggles (See-Through Boomer Vomit)
  
• Morphine (Resistant Against Limp Pain)
  
• Adrenaline Implant (Increased Movement Speed)
  
• Hot Meal (Restore Health On Next Saferoom)
  
• Laser Sight (Increased Accuracy)
  
• Suppressor (Silenced Gunfire & Muzzle Flash)
  
• Combat Sling (Reduced Recoil)
  
• High Capacity Magazine (Increased Magazine Size)
  
• Hollow Point Ammunition (Increased Bullet Damage)
  
• Night Vision Goggles (Increased Dark Vision)
  
• Safety Fuse (Increased Pipebomb Duration)
  
• Sniper Scope (Sniper Zoom Attachment)
  
• Sniper Scope Accuracy (Increased Zoom Accuracy)
  
• Knife (Self-Save Pinned)
  
• Smelling Salts (Reduced Revive Duration)
  
• Ointment (Increased Healing Effect)
  
• Slight of Hand (Increase Reload Speed)
  
• Stimpacks (Reduced Healing Duration)
  
• Grenade Pouch (Increased Grenade Slots)
  
• Pickpocket Hook (Steal Items On Stealth Kills)
  
• Ocular Implants (Infected Drop Items)
  
• Pyro Pouch (Explosives Are More Effective)
  
• Transfusion Box (Allow Health Recovery From Melee)
  
• Arm Guards (Increased Maximum Health)
  
• Shin Guards (Increased Maximum Health)
  
• Autoinjectors (Increased Incapacitation Limit)

Unofficial Upgrades

There are a total of 18 Custom Upgrades in this version of which all of them can be disabled to use the classic upgrades provided. Some of them include: Large Pain Pills, Steroids, Bandages, Beta-Blockers, Morphogenic Cells, Air Boots, Large First Aid Kit, Night Vision Goggles, Safety Fuse, Stimpacks, Grenade Pouch, Pickpocket Hook, Ocular Implants, Pyro Pouch, Transfusion Box, Arm Guards, Shin Guards, Autoinjectors.

Installation of Survivor Upgrades is as follows, choose the appropriated version you wish to use:

• Survivor Upgrades (Original Version)
  
• Survivor Upgrades (Plugin Version)
  
• KrX's Survivor Upgrades[forums.alliedmods.net] (Advanced)
  
• Survivor Upgrades Reloaded[forums.alliedmods.net] (Full/Complete Version)

If you do not choose the Original Version for this matter, you must install SourceMod and MetaMod: Source into your Left 4 Dead Directory. You cannot use any version of these unless you have it installed, including the Original Version. To begin, you must first place the plugin (*.smx) into the plugins folder located in SourceMod.

Be advised, each of these standalone plugins require setup before use, however, some can be used instantly after installation. It is highly recommended you read the guide on how to use them properly.

Quick Installation
1. Download Plugin (*.smx) into your SourceMod's Plugin folder.
2. Start your SRCDS.exe for Left 4 Dead running the SourceMod Plugin.
3. Join your Local IP(LAN Address: 192.168.x.x) of your server.

The following information below states to whom the proper credit goes to for the content posted, described, and registered to. All content and copyright goes to Turtle Rock Studios/VALVe Corporation.

Survivor Upgrades is a registered trademark and modification to Turtle Rock Studios and VALVe. This modification was not created by public consumption.

Survivor Upgrades List/Names - Registered and Ripped from VALVe's Left 4 Dead files - What is Survivor Upgrades? - Whosat[forums.alliedmods.net], Marcus101RR, & Ŧђɇ ƼϮϞ §μȑ√iⱴ۞ѓ